Verifications and Audit

The Verifications and Audit Department is mainly responsible for ensuring that taxpayers declare the correct amount of tax due in their tax returns, through the use of technology and by adopting Compliance Risk Management Principles.  Thus, the Verification and Audit Department is responsible for identifying and taking action against any non-conformers through a selection of compliance initiatives that include full administrative audits, aspect audits and other process.  Moreover, the Department is also responsible for the enforcement of the fiscal obligations in business to customer transactions through field operations including inspections at business premises.

The Verifications and Audit Department is divided into three Directorates and employs approximately 65 employees. The Department also includes a small Support Unit.  An organigram of the Department is provided below.   

Verifications and Audit Department Organigram

Source: MTCA

The following provides an overview of the main responsibilities of each Directorate.

Risk, Intelligence and Fraud Prevention: This Directorate is tasked with the monitoring and profiling of taxpayers through the use of technology.  Through such exercises, the Directorate aims at developing the necessary internal intelligence which is used by the other Departments and Directorates.  Such monitoring is carried out through the use of SAS (Statistical Analysis Software).  Taxpayers flagged as high-risk are communicated to the Tax Audit Directorate or the Aspect Audit Directorate for further checks and verifications.

Tax Audits: The Tax Audit Directorate is primarily responsible in performing audits on taxpayers to verify the completeness of the tax amount due to the administration.  This Directorate cooperates with other tax authorities and also provides assistance to the Malta Police Force in the analysis of tax matters depending on the case.

Inspectorate/Aspect Audit: The main objective of this Directorate is to verify the accuracy of VAT refunds claimed, analyse particular Income Tax matters and ensure that Fiscal Receipts are issued and that sales are reported appropriately and in a timely manner.   The Directorate is also responsible in performing field inspections.